Living life as an autistic man finally free of all things that are true issues, I can see and actually feel the light at the end of the battle tunnel. I have been bored most of my adult life. The issue is actually being happy and satisfied with my life as it is and not overthinking about impending gloom and doom as I often have been doing the majority of my life.
It seems unreal for a minute that there is actually a sense of being able to breathe a sigh of relief. For most of my life it has had some sort of negative connotation to it where I never felt truly happy or able to be my own self in reality. Before I moved out on my own, I mirrored a lot of what my mother did where she had no breathing room. My dad and I had a unique dynamic where we struggled in what each other’s needs were to the point where it was negatively affecting me. I thought and was close to moving out on several attempts and four years ago I finally went through with it, not letting my anxiety get in the way of stopping my chance of freedom.
As I had the taste of freedom, I was being a little too libatious, exploring how I truly wanted to feel without realizing that there has to be some sense of reality and that I was not taking care of myself until others around me became concerned, still I did not listen. Then the issues with my first apartment arose and could not be easily remedied in short order, in the midst of that, everything changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and I had to accept that I had to close the chapter of my first taste of independence while reaching rock bottom and amid a global return to some sense of normalcy and trying to get back on my feet.
Through pure luck a few months later, I got a new apartment and love it today. Then there were the internal battles I faced with my mental health challenges and I still face issues with adhering to my medication regimen to some degree, however I am in a really good spot, yet I do not feel as if I deserve to be happy. I have even grown so much since living in my current home nearly two years ago that it can be hard to recognize that I do not constantly need to be on the lookout for something that is going to go wrong. Yes, things do happen in life and I cannot say that life isn’t fool proof, but my life has actually gotten to a point where I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and take it easy.
The reality is that I have never been in a good place like this for a very long time without having to be deeply concerned about something going wrong. I know that my anxiety is at the level that it normally is, yet I just can’t seem to find that happiness that I know is deserving. I think that it’s vindictive or that I brush it off like it isn’t meant for me or that it is really true. It’s like constantly being on edge like you are going to cause an issue with something that you worked so hard for.
In the last few weeks, circumstances have arisen that I have accepted the need to follow through more consistently with my medication regimen, particularly the one medicine that I have been having a struggle with since being independent. Since being mostly consistent, I have realized that I have become a less complicated person and that issues are minimal. It seems as if I need to feel time now because I am not having to retreat to bed continually, although I am getting a decent amount of sleep in the evenings, likely because I had to catch up from so much of a disrupted sleep pattern over the past few years. I know I am better because of what I need to do and that it works for a reason.
Nonetheless, I know that I need to be happier about life because I have worked so hard to get to this point in my life. I cannot change my faults of my past, they happened as they did and I learned from them, I need to move on and be happier about myself and not let things get to me so deeply and live a little.
Dustin's Dynasty 